Royal name game heats up
U.K. bookmakers say Alice, Arthur are odds on favourites
As the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge prepare to welcome their second child in the coming days, U.K. bookmakers are taking bets on everything from the baby’s gender (female is the favourite) to its birth weight (7 lbs.).
But the biggest source of speculation is what they will call the new arrival, who will be fourth in line to the throne.
The bookies say Alice and Arthur are the favourites, but Will and Kate will have to juggle their own personal convictions with family pressure and royal traditions in making their decision
There are, after all, plenty of Elizabeths and Williams within their lineage, but no Daves or Chads to speak of, and for good reason.
Tradition and heritage are vital to the British nobility. Names in ye olde England, and in many ways today, were reliable signposts of a person’s class. Before the Norman invasion,
Anglo-Saxon names like Godwin, Ordric, Ailwin, and Wilfrid were common, but after the invasion, once the Normans established themselves as nobility and inter-mingled with the population, Norman names like William, Richard, Henry and Matilda flourished.
Peter Ackroyd’s The History of England, Volume I: Foundation records an instance in the 12th century of a boy who changed his name from Tostig to William to avoid being bullied by his peers.
Hewing to tradition, maintaining the prestige of royalty and ensuring their child doesn’t become the inside joke among the family, or the public, means that, for the royal couple, picking a name is more like a matter of precise negotiation than going with a gut feeling.
“Charlotte is one of the favourites for a girl, and it would honour both sides of the new baby’s family” said Carolyn Harris, a professor of History at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies. “Pippa Middleton’s middle name is Charlotte, and Charlotte is the feminine version of William’s father’s name, Charles.”
Harris, who mused about the possibility of Richard for a boy, also suggests the bookmakers may be on to something.
“Alice would be another suitable choice. There have been numerous royal women named Alice, including Prince Philip’s mother, and the Duchess of Cambridge wrote her senior thesis on Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland.”
Looking to the past, however, isn’t the only option. Sometimes names are pulled upwards, injected into tradition by royal decree.
For example, Henry III brought prestige to the Anglo-Saxon Edward, using the name for his eldest son, who would become Edward I.
Queen Victoria, meanwhile, chose the common name Alice for her daughter. Both are today considered proper names for aristocracy, history be damned.
Marriages with foreign royalty, particularly from France, also brought new names like Eleanor, Isabelle, and Henrietta into the pool.
“Edward I named one of his sons Alfonso after his brotherin-law, the King of Castile, and the accession of the House of Hanover to the British throne in 1714 introduced new names such as George, Caroline, Amelia and Charlotte,” Harris said.
A few Anglo-Saxon names have evolved and persist today — Drew, Douglas, Gordon, Megan, Tracy and Catherine, but they were largely overshadowed by Norman and Biblical names.
William has been one of the longest lasting names, hovering in Top 10 lists for well over 500 years.
The confusing number of Williams and Richards and Henrys was the reason that surnames were standardized.